And the Baby is......

Wow,it has been awhile since I blogged! Things have been going quickly over here. The Other Half is away on business at least 2days a week now. I just get in go mode and get only the necessities done. I am trying to branch out from that, now that the kids and I have gotten our routine down.

The Other Half and I found out last week that we are having another boy! G was there with us and asked the Ultra Sound Tech where the girl was. Ha! I just started laughing and asked if she was sure. She pointed to his boy part and proved that she wasn't pulling my leg. The Other Half just laughed and said he couldn't believe it. We felt sure it was a girl. Plus we had already agreed on a name. Boy names on the other hand have proven very difficult for us to agree on. This could be one of those kids that has their name pulled out of a hat in the delivery room. I kid...I think....

C was none to happy about the news. I told her at school when I came to pick her up from tutoring. She, unfortunately, started to cry. Her friend Emily, who is in the same sibling boat, hugged her and told her they would start a Girls with Brothers club. By day 3 C had come around. She has grasped that she will never have to share a room and she will be 10years older than her brother, so she won't have to put up with alot of "stinky brother" activity. And in the mean time C has had her hand kicked by the baby, which melted her heart. She is always asking me if he is moving and if she can feel it. She really likes talking to my belly.

G has awesomely accepted the fact that he will be the big brother or a brother. He currently wants the baby to sleep in his room. He says he can't wait to snuggle the baby, teach it to give zurburts, and rock'n roll. I love his attitude thus far!
I do have to say being given another boy is intimidating. I'm not intimidated by all the boy stuff. Peeing outside, doing gross things for a laugh, the loudness, the physicalness, that is all fine. I've always had a large amount of guy friends so that doesn't and hasn't fazed me. However, having a son with highly functioning autism does give us an increased chance that this child could have autism. Our pediatrician said, regardless of sex, our chances increase 50% that this child could have autism. I don't worry about it often, but it does cross my mind. I pray for protection and guidance. For this next child we will be doing a delayed shot schedule. I'm a healthy eater, so I've continued to do that as well. I exercise too. Although I have to say, G tolerated his shots much better than C. I don't recall him having fever or getting sick after any of them. However later in pregnancy was hard health wise for he and I. I had to be on antibiotics for upper respiratory infection, then bronchitis, and several other things. He also had complications during and post delivery. So it is hard to say what triggered his autism. I figure all I can do is pray, and make logical discussions based on creditable sources for this little guy. Then one has to let the chips fall where they may.

Autism and Highly functioning Autism can be a real pain in the butt. It can take a toll on you and your family. It has at times done all of that to us. Having said that Autism can come with many gifting too. G has become very articulate with voicing his feelings. This comes from all the therapy and social stories he has had. He is a very loving guy. He reads and writes at a higher level than his Kindergarten grade. He loves music. He hears things in the music that I don't. He is teaching himself to play the drums well. He has been watching the praise and worship team ,at church, practice and preform for close to 3years. This past December, while they practiced for the Christmas program, some people heard someone playing bongos. They assumed because of how on time they were, that it was part of a track played with the musicians. The song stopped, but the bongos continued. The ladies looked around, and it was G playing. Everyone thought it was so cool they let him continue during practices. The musicians have also been sweet to let him sit and "play" drums. His play has turned very good.The musicians love telling me about what G did after practice, or showing me their phone videos of him singing and playing drums in time. G also likes writing his own songs. He spends hours in his room singing loudly,in key, and drumming his heart out. He has a gift, a love, a joy. Who knows if it would be as strong if he weren't who he is, if the Autism wasn't present. Who knows?
Because of these things we try not to be afraid.

Big News on the Road Less Taken!

Big news on the Hippie Home front : 1) At 10 am tomorrow we sign papers on our new house!!!!!!! and 2) We are adding number 3 to our family!

After 3 years of trying to sell our house and buy another we are free! Free! Free! The house we have bought is in a great neighborhood, but a total rehab job. So, starting tomorrow, and for the next week and half, we will be rehabbing the new place and boxing up our old place. The blessing is we can still live in our old home while we get the new place habitable. I am hoping to post pictures of our before and afters. Give you updates on our progress, and such. I am excited and overwhelmed. Thank God we have so may handy friends that are going to help us with this project! It is quite the undertaking.

On top of the good news about our house, last Tuesday we were surprised with the news that we are expecting #3. We were really surprised! C will be 10 when the baby is born and G will be almost 7! Talk about spreading them out! LOL! Someone asked me, very seriously, if I still had

my old stroller, car seats, and such. I laughed and replied no. (For over 6months The other half and I had been talking vasectomy!) She replied, very seriously, that I probably should have kept them. LOL! I could only laugh. I gave those things away before G was 5yrs old,to people who needed them much more than I, at the time. I would have never thought I would space my kids out this far! We are both at peace and happy. The kids are over the moon! But I would be lying if I said I wasn't worried. Not so much about the baby's health, as I worry about the economy, my Other Half's job, bigger house equals bigger payment + Baby..... But what is that saying, if he can bring you to he will bring you through it? I have been praying alot!

I hope all of you are doing well out there. Just remember the election is almost over! ;)

I am hoping to keep you posted about all progresses in the up coming weeks and I look forward to reading your blogs on my "breaks".

Made it out Alive!

The other half doesn't travel for work as much as he use to. However, when he does he is usually gone for 5days or more. Those times when I am left on my own with C & G give me a renewed appreciation for having a partner in parenting! Last week He left for his BIG annual work conference. He was gone about 6days. By day two I was at home with two children that were crying for daddy at the drop of a hat and not hesitating to call me a "Bad mom." I had to tell them that," If making them clean their room, do their homework, eat their dinner, or stop fighting, made me a "bad mother", then yes I was." *Sigh* The life of a "single" parent. I wish I could say the days got better but they didn't. G's ticks were in over drive. He was repeating things more than normal, which was starting to drive me mad. It made me appreciate how nice it is to be able to tell G,"Go ask your dad." When his repetition of the same question or spelling word has got me to my breaking point. But alas, I just had to suck it up. It is also nice to have someone to help C with her homework while I am helping G with something, or visa versa. My hats off to you Single Mom's, you are amazing!
Thank God for good friends. I was able to get out for a few hours on Tuesday night and go to a bible study at my friends house. She has a 13year old son that she allowed to babysit for me. I had figured I would pick Joel up at 6, he would babysit at my house from 6:30-10pm and I would run him home. Well bless his parents heart, they called me before I picked Joel up and said they wanted to "serve" me by picking Joel up after bible study, that way I wouldn't have to wake the kids up and drag them out into the cold! How sweet! It was sooo sooo very nice of them and it made my life so much easier.
Well Sunday evening came and the Other Half arrived home to big hugs all around. The kids were relieved to see someone other than me and I was relieved to have reinforcements. It is amazing how much of a difference 2 parents make. It is so nice to have another person there to pick up the slack when you need a break or if the kids do, even if the break is for 5minutes.
To all the single parents out there, you are amazing. You deserve a medal. I have all the respect in the world for you!

Simplicity

What is this? This is no ordinary cardboard box. This is The Dream House! How beautiful is it that children look at this and see potential?! All I had to do was cut 2 windows and 1 door. They did the rest. What you can see is flowers drawn on the top and sides. Every dream house needs a garden, right? On the inside C and G drew furniture and animals. After they were done decorating they christened their new home "The Dream House". How beautiful. "Be it every so humble, there is no place like home!"

My Mind is all a Swirl

I have so much flying through my mind right now! I was sick last week and the kids were under the weather this week; so I am totally thrown off. I am late/behind on sending out my Christmas cards. My shopping is behind and I totally need to go to the grocery! I have tonight and Sunday night to get stuff done, no pressure. I don't think I have ever been this behind. I did manage to buy some things online last week. I am hoping they make it on time....

On top of that, I have been seriously considering renting my house out. We have tossed the idea around for many years. We have recently met many people who have 1 or more rentals. A good friend of mine recently acquired her second rental property. Her realtor told her not to sell any of them right now,because of the market, and that renting was the way to go with this crappy market. I have read that the sell of homes are down 6.7% from this time last year. Due to the huge amount of foreclosures and the mortgage industries tightening of standards, there are more people out there renting than purchasing. So, I don't know.....We are both going to pray about it. Renting out your house can be a big deal. So the other half and I are going to pray about it ALOT and have dinner with my good friend K and her Hubs and hear how they have gone about having 3 mortgages and 2 sets of tenants. I have always wanted to have a rental property, weird I know. But they can afford you some financial security when you are older. The properties could also be sold at a later date and pay for C or G's college or any extra expenses we may incur due to G's delays. It's alot to think about. So we are praying about it. We also seem to be running into quit a few acquaintances that have a property or two and have been more than happy to share their experiences with me, which is lovely of them to do.
So my question to any of you is, have you ever had a rental property? If so what was your experience with that, tenants, lawyers, and realtors?

Thanks!

Whoa is me!

Oh my goodness do I have a cold! Ugh! I felt this cold coming on about 4 days ago. I have been downing regular tea, red tea, green tea, herbs, airborne, you name it, in hopes of warding this baby off. To no avail. I am sick and I don't have the time to be sick. (Do we ever?) It is t-minus 3days until I have house guests! I have soooooo much to do to get ready, very few helpers and not much energy. To top it off I have only crappy tv to watch in the mean time. I know, whine, whine, whine. But seriously, I have one evening to rest, which is tonight, and there is nothing on! Oh but you say,'Watch American Idol!' No thanks. I really think it is the most over rated show on tv. I hate it when they show the people who can't sing. Not only do I not want to hear them "sing", but I hate hearing them get torn down. I hate that the whole next day ALL the radio stations laugh and poke fun at the people who can't sing. I just don't get making fun of people or even laughing at someones attempt at their dream. I just can't make any sense of American Idol. But I'm too sick to bore people with the rest. So what am I watching tonight? Soap net. Oh yes, I said it, SoapNet. This is how desperate I am for some "decent" tv.

On another note, can you believe we are just about in the middle of January?! Is it me, or as you get older does time roll bye more quickly? Is it that we are more busy? Because I have to tell you I was a fairly active kid, and time seemed to take FOREVER to tick bye. Now it just flits. In some ways that's great because you get back around to birthdays more quickly. Now I have to prefece; I hate getting older. I always have. But I love my birthday, I love other peoples birthdays. Just like Christmas, how fun is it to go shopping for the right gift?! How yummy is cake?! Cake and Icecream are the best food group on the whole pyrimid. The very best. I am an equal oppurtunity cake eater. The more cake the better, with a nice side of icecream, pure heaven!

Totally on to another topic.(ADD much?!) I was at the library and discovered a new periodical. It's a Canadian magazine called Macleans. A friend of mine informed me that it was a kind of Time or Newsweek for Canada. They had a great article titled Why are we dressing our daughters like skanks? Great, catchy title huh? With a title like that I just had to read it and it was great! It talks about how companies and parents are working together to degrade the next generations innocence. I checked online and Macleans has an excerpt entitled Why are we dressing our daughters like this? Here is the link: http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/life/article.jspcontent=20070101_139023_139023
The article really is quite good. It certainly has affected who I purchase from and what I purchase. I hope you find it as informative and interesting.
Have a good week!